All the DDT fanboys need to read that article especially the second page. A snippet......

Nor is there any reason to think it would work better today; according to Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, an urban entomologist at Cornell, among a wide variety of pesticides tested against bedbugs within the last two years, DDT performed the worst.

I understand where they are coming from, but perhaps some of the comments were taken out of context?

Regarding the comment about residuals, I know that there are at least SOME effective residuals, such as Tempo dust and Phantom and lets not forget DE!

In a way, it is better that the article sounds so dire, it will get folks to sit on the EPA or at least get some money thrown at the problem. Every infestation eradicated will have the potential to reduce the spread.

I could be wrong, but what I hear most PCOs saying--both in that article and in posts here--is this:

The residual pesticides that we currently have don't work very effectively against bed bugs.

Those residual pesticides will eventually work on bed bugs, but because of the behavior of bed bugs and their physiology, bed bugs don't come into much contact with those residuals, so they aren't as effective as quickly as PCOs would like them to be.

DE is actually in the same boat: it will work, but it takes a long time and it doesn't work as effectively in terms of a bug crossing it once and dying quickly.

What I think I've heard PCOs desire is a chemical or mechanical or a whatever substance that they could spray, say, on baseboards, that a bed bug would regularly cross just once and be killed by very soon after. One that managed to have that effect on eggs would be even better. Still better if those chemicals had a 100% kill rate for bugs and eggs--or very close to it.

I didn't read the article as saying it was hopeless, just that it outlined why there's not more R&D money going into pesticides that would have those improved effects on killing bed bugs.

Personally, I also think it's important that the general public also remember that even if a new pesticide that does those things comes along, we still need to keep looking for new and better ones since there's plenty of evidence that bed bugs can quickly become resistant to any new pesticide on the market.

This was my favorite phrase from the article, as this is my sentiment towards isopropyl alcohol:

Most of the things we have now, you almost have to spray directly on the bug to do anything to him. Or hit him with the can.

I haven't read much about propoxur, but by this article, it seems the concern with household use is children being exposed to it. What about adult households with no child visitors? There's got to be a way to get more effective chemicals into use.